I really like them, personally. I find it easy to manage our Kindle books. There is a Collection for me to read, and one for my Significant Other. When my SO buys a book, I stick it in the appropriate Collection (I can do that on my device), and my SO doesn’t have to hunt around for the books.

Amazon has been spreading them out to more devices and apps.

You can now get to them on:

Kindle Fire HDXs

Kindle Fire HD 2nd Generation

Kindle Paperwhite (1st and 2nd Generation)

iDevices (iPad, iPhone, iPod touch)

On Android devices

In the Kindle for Samsung app

So, what currently sold as new devices (hardware Kindles/apps) don’t have them?

The “Mindle” (which is what I call the lowest priced model)

Blackberry

Anything Windows

Mac desktop/laptops (“non-mobile” Apple devices)

The Kindle Cloud reader (Amazon’s browser-based reader)

On my Samsung (running Kindle for Android), I tap the menu, then tap Collections. I don’t have a lot of Collections on individual devices, so what came up worked fine for me.

When I “long press” (hold a finger or stylus on it for about a second) one of those collections, I get the choice to trash it or edit it (using a pencil icon). Choosing “Edit” only lets me rename it.

If I tap a Collection to open it, I can use the menu to sort by author, most recent, or title.

Again, there is a pencil edit icon, and a plus in a circle, which lets me add titles.

Long pressing a title within the Collection gives me a plus circle, a minus circle, and a menu (three squares). Tapping the menu lets me download it, view it in the store, or see the Shelfari book extras. Clicking the plus circle lets me add that book to other Cloud collections.

I learned that Suzi LeVine, the new American ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, was sworn into office…by putting a hand on a Kindle!

It’s a cool picture, and shows how integrated they’ve become.

The file was open to the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution…

Department of Justice looking at Amazon?

I’ve been flipping lots of articles about the Hachazon War (the Hachette and Amazon “negotiations”) into the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard. I’ll link a few here, but one interesting thing is the number of people who say that what Amazon is doing with Hachette may be illegal.

Running a search for “Amazon illegal Hachette” nets quite a few results:

Apparently, the DoJ (Department of Justice) is asking publishers about their new dealings with Amazon.

Now, that might not be to target Amazon…it might just be checking in with publishers that settled over the Agency model with the DoJ.

Still, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if some entities (including the Authors Guild) might have asked the DoJ to investigate.

Sure, a store could stop carrying somebody’s product (like Amazon dropping Hachette, if they were to do that…which they haven’t) and that’s legal. There’s no obligation to carry everybody’s everything.

You do need a free AmazonLocal account to take advantage of these, but why not? Well, I suppose some of you might not want to give them your information, but I’d be surprised if very many readers of this blog don’t already have Amazon relationships.

I’ll keep an eye on it for you and let you know if I see an update becoming broadly available.

What do you think? Are you sick of Hachazon War stories? As regular readers know, I try to keep the blog eclectic, covering lots of different topics. This one is getting so much coverage, though, that it’s a bit hard to avoid mentioning it. 😉 Have you found good uses for Cloud Collections? Since they aren’t on the Mindle, does that suggest the Mindle is going to be discontinued? Does Amazon need a Kindle device which is lower-priced than the Paperwhite? Will the DoJ go after Amazon? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

I’m going to suggest you go there, in case they get some kind of referral fee (which would only be fair). They give you a code to use at Staples, and that’s what reduces the price.

How low is this?

At Amazon, for the current generation KFHD (which is what this is), with 16GB (that’s not the smallest memory size) and Special Offers, you’d pay $169…so this is $50 lower!

You will likely pay sales tax, but shipping is free.

I’m not linking to it at Amazon, because you won’t get this price there, and I don’t want to confuse people.

Does this again suggest new hardware on the way? Perhaps…this would be a short life cycle for this one, though.

Nominate a child to be given a free Kindle at Give a Kid a Kindle. You can also now recommend a child to be the recipient.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Like this:

You may need to go into the store on your phone to be able to get the update.

I do sometimes see people say that the Kindle Fire app is the same as the Kindle for Android app…one thing that says it isn’t is that it doesn’t update at the same time, like this.

This update does three main things (in addition to unspecified bug fixes):

Support for Kindle Format 8, which is the newer, more computer-friendly format. This enables you access to illustrated children’s books and comics/graphic novels that have otherwise been available for the Kindle Fire. However, you have to be careful: some of these books are optimized for larger screens (which it will say on the book’s Amazon product page) for good reason. For example, after you upgrade, get yourself a sample of Watchmen. You’ll need better eyes than I have to read what’s in the word balloons.

You can now get your personal documents on your Android phone! that’s a nice touch. What I found easiest was to tap Menu – Search. Then, I can search for the personal document by name…I can see what the names are at http://www.amazon.com/manageyourkindle. You should also be able to send them from there, but it didn’t show up right away for me. I tried a pdf…that didn’t work very well, because I couldn’t see a way to increase the text size or zoom. Still, this is a nice addition. You can also send directly to the device. You can see the “Send-to-Kindle e-mail address by doing Menu-Settings, and you can change it at that Manage Your Kindle link above, Personal Document Settings

You can now choose a specific-language dictionary when you look up a word. That was a bit confusing to me, and there was no help on the help page. Once you “long press” the word (hold your finger on it for a bout a second), you’ll see the definition. There is an icon of a book in your top right corner. Tap that, and choose your language (from Deutsch, English UK, English USA, Espanol, Francais, Italiana, Portugues…and two Asian dictionaries which I can’t identify by sight…let me know if you know for sure). Once you choose a language, you’ll be prompted to download the dictionary. Fortunately, they don’t put all of the dictionaries on your device at once! This app is big enough as it is. I downloaded the Spanish one to test it. Once I’d downloaded the dictionary, it would show me the definition in the last language I used…and then I could tap the dictionary icon, switch to another dictionary which I had downloaded, and see that definition (I tested English USA and Espanol with the word “no”, which is in both). That’s better than the Mindle, where you can switch languages, but it requires a restart of the device, and you can only have one at a time.

I thought you might be interested in the stats:

Before the update:

Version 3.4.1.1

Storage

Total: 28.84MB

Applications 204KB

Data 28.63MB

After the update

Total 31.44MB (without the Spanish dictionary: with it, 33.02MB)

Applilcations 216KB

Data 30.77MB (with the Spanish dictionary: 31.22MB)

Overall, I think the update is an improvement, although I’m not sure how valuable the Kindle Format 8 is on my SmartPhone…probably more valuable on an Android tablet.

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